Ohio has issues

Sunday

Jun 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMJun 29, 2008 at 11:14 AM

Ohioans are seeing more state issues on even-year ballots, and the reason is no mystery. Statewide initiatives, particularly on hot-button issues, drive voter turnout. Operatives in both parties want a surge of like-minded voters when Ohio is electing the president or governor.

Ohioans are seeing more state issues on even-year ballots, and the reason is no mystery. Statewide initiatives, particularly on hot-button issues, drive voter turnout. Operatives in both parties want a surge of like-minded voters when Ohio is electing the president or governor.

While issues such as a gay-marriage ban, a minimum-wage increase and a mandatory paid sick leave draw crowds on Election Day, they don't bring better government to Ohio.

The misuse of ballot initiatives to help candidates and political parties often results in bad law.

The gay-marriage ban of 2004 and minimum-wage raise of 2006 were stuffed into the Ohio Constitution, which shouldn't be burdened with policy matters that the legislature should decide and implement by statute.

Statutes can be updated relatively easily by the legislature. But updating a constitutional amendment requires a statewide vote. This is an unwieldy way to set policy.

President Bush's re-election campaign benefited from the gay-marriage ban, which put into the constitution a definition of marriage that was already in statutory law. The minimum-wage issue attracted low-income Ohioans who tend to favor Democrats, helping them recapture all but one of the statewide elected offices.

Yes, Ohio's minimum wage at the time was low, but Congress was raising the minimum wage nationally, and the state legislature has the power to do the same whenever voters elect lawmakers amenable to the idea.

The mandatory sick-leave requirement for Ohio employers, if it appears on the Nov. 4 ballot, is intended to draw low- to middle-income Ohioans to the polls. The measure requires that all employers with 25 or more workers provide seven paid sick days per year. Part-time workers would have their paid sick leave prorated.

The proposal sounds great to workers with little or no paid sick leave. But by imposing additional costs on businesses, it could make the state less attractive for businesses seeking to locate or expand here.

No wonder Gov. Ted Strickland has such ambivalence about the sick-leave proposal, called the Healthy Families Act.

On one hand, it would help fellow Democrats, such as presidential candidate Barack Obama; on the other hand, business leaders are telling the governor it would kill jobs.

Strickland wanted a compromise to keep the issue off the November ballot, but that was never in the cards.

Nearly half of Ohio's private-sector employees don't have that much paid sick leave, and polls show the measure would win easily if the vote were held today.

The risk for Ohio's labor force is that the cost of meeting the requirement could result in offsetting reductions in other parts of an employer's benefits package or cut the number of people a business employs.

Government mandates on the private sector are rarely, if ever, cost-free, as the proponents of this one claim.

Ohioans should remember that these ballot issues are intended to push hot buttons in the hope that voters will cast a ballot without thinking through the consequences.